Miniaturization is a prevalent trend in the manufacturing of electronic products. Additionally, manufacturing costs should be kept minimum, which implies relatively straightforward, high yield processes with reduced number of process stages and material waste among other factors.
Although more traditional electronic elements such as PCBs (printed circuit board), conductors, components like SMDs (surface-mount device), etc. have reduced in size and weight, many of them are still relatively bulky and rigid/inflexible compared to printed electronics. Printed electronics have generally shown the way to thin, light, flexible/bendable and rapidly manufactured structures.
Current optical or optoelectronic solutions generally follow the aforementioned trends. Control of light emission, transmission, coupling, etc. is increasingly required in a variety of different applications ranging from mobile electronics and digital entertainment to digital signage and automotive industry. Traditionally, the control of light transmission has required the use of relatively complex coupling and filtering structures, which have been, besides tricky to manufacture with good yield, space-consuming, fragile, lossy and costly.
Accordingly, in many occasions it could be sensible to utilize opportunities provided by printed electronics or combine several manufacturing technologies including printed electronics to obtain products with desired characteristics, yield and cost. In a multitude of contemporary optical applications, the size, cost, and reliability requirements are rather strict considering e.g. the manufacturing of small-sized, consumer electronics grade touch panels embedded in various apparatuses such as smartphones, tablets, and phablets. While the theory in the field of physics and optics leading at a sufficient level of light control in such applications is well known for years by now, many manufactured solutions have fallen under a number of aforesaid pitfalls such as complexity and fragility.